Night riding peculiarities explained by Kawasakis Fanali

Fiorenzo Fanali, crew chief for Kawasakis John Hopkins, spoke to motogp.com at the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar, providing some insights into how the team have prepared the Anglo-American riders Ninja ZX-RR for this weekends floodlit action at Losail International.

Using data gathered from last weeks test visit Team Green have specifically tweaked the settings on their 800cc prototype and have been appropriately supported by tyre suppliers Bridgestone in order to provide Hopkins with the most competitive possible package for competing in the cool night-time conditions although during initial practice runs Hopkins was unable to run at the head of the timesheets.

From 7pm to 11pm, we go from 20ºC on the track to 15ºC, so it´s mainly the grip level that goes down, especially on the left side, so in this case we have some help from Bridgestone and use different tyres for night time, for cold conditions.

So in this case we improve the grip level, but we also have our share of work on our side to help improve the grip, working on the suspension and we make a lot of changes on the engine mapping so we can reduce the spinning and the slide we have from the tyre. Traction control helps in those low grip conditions, so the rider can control the spin, stated the Italian mechanic.

Everytime we come to Qatar, he continued, the first day is difficult because there´s a lot of sand on the track but we tested here last week and the situation was very similar to now. Sure today should be better than yesterday and lap times should be faster and I think also today the temperature is higher now so the tyres work better than in last week´s Official Test.